Barbara Harper
Com 120 Research Project
I didn’t know that the Quakers in organized religion as we know it, was one of the first people to accept female leaders. The Society of Friends believed all had parts of the soul in them-male or female, and have had this belief since the start of the 1800’s . Other places weren’t so accepting. Congregationalist didn’t accept a lady Antoinette Brown even after she was ordained. She left and joined the Unitarians. A woman was ordained in North Carolina in 1964, Addie Davis at a Southern Baptist church. Later they changed their official stance and decided it was only right that only men should be ordained in 2000.
Still men had been accepted as pastors for much longer. It took us a long time to gain acceptance in other denominations. While female leaders in the church are more accepted then before, they have a long way to go. A way to look at acceptance is people, is how many people listen to you.In the United Methodist Church females only lead five percent of larger congregations. That is a very small percent compared to the number of the males who head bigger churches. Of all in total there are only twenty percent women ministers. Also compared to the men it is amazing.
Women aren’t even close to half. It is barely over a fourth .The bishops have more than half males – only 28 percent are females. To make it easier to see, only 14 out of 50 Bishops are female. It has been calculated that of the Methodist, the churches with the most numbers were led by men far more than women led the large churches. Men led one thousand and fifty-five of the larger churches. Women only headed eighty-one of the churches. A few churches had men and women both be pastors, eight churches with size similar to the others.
This was found by people from the Methodist church who were statisticians in late 2007. It definitely is for the most part a man’s world in ministry. For the women who try it can be a tough road. A convention of women pastors met. They had moved forward and gone further in the ministry then many others expect of them. Most women pastors might not go past a certain point but these women kept going. Sadly as with most things, it was not without trouble. These women have been through a lot in order to go further for God.
When the women got together it didn’t take long for the tales of their journey in ministry, very often with pain and not without the women becoming emotional and crying. Things must have been really bad for these women to open up and tell their stories with tears to people they didn’t know very well must have been something. This information came from one of these women, Trudy Robinson. She is head of a Methodist church with more than one thousand members. Trudy Robinson also felt that members predict greater things from men rather than women. From the women they were not slow judgment with head pastors that were women. It is not going to be small things, as for little things they would look over.
These women are simply trying to do what they feel God is leading them to do in their lives. In our own beautiful state of North Carolina we have acceptance and rejection of women pastors. At Providence Baptist church Julie Merritt Lee has been made head pastor of that church, who has had a female pastor since it began. It is a quite an exception. The usual way for things would be to happen would be as it happened in Asheville.
In 2002 instead of just being an assistant pastor, she became the head pastor at First Baptist church. This turned off a couple of the denominations organizations nearby. A head pastor of Wilshire Baptist church George Mason let his opinion be known that he agrees and is glad with the decision to make Julie a head pastor and she was very talented individual in ministry. He hope it would show the beginning of a time when abilities is more important than gender to a church. A cover that featured women pastors who have done well was on Gospel today‘s magazine. The magazine was taken down by Christian Bookstores that have any connection with the Southern Baptist churches.
The founder and editor Terasa Hairston found out that Lifeway Christian bookstores didn’t show the magazine in over one hundred stores .Lifeway is a huge name in bookstores. An unknown source told her what was going on through email. It said it seemed bad , as if it was porn instead of a magazine with pastors. Hairston didn’t hear back from the higher ups at Lifeway. There was a lot of people who let it be known they agree what happened was not right. Their intent was to show the progress made in people’s lives from these pastors.
They weren’t meaning to offend anyone. Without meaning too they got offended. It can happen people can be hurt without meaning too hurt others. It is what happens easily with pastors. Pastors inadvertently hurt others when they make mistakes such as the big one of being sexual abusers. Women and men seem to be more forgiving of the opposite sex pastor from themselves. Even without the pastor seeking forgiveness. Women weren’t as receptive to forgiving a pastor male or female pastors then men were.
We don’t know why this is; it is not what one would expect to find out. It is possible that women aren’t as forgiving because they are more often those who get sexually targeted rather than men. It is an situation which has a lot of factors. In time we may understand it more, but I doubt we can ever fully understand it all, it is so complicated.
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Skipping ahead ...
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